A View From Pegana

As we near completion of the new Dunsany collection, The Men of Baldfolk and Other Fanciful Tales, it seemed like an appropriate time to talk about Sidney Sime and the watercolour illustrations we've been so fortunate to be able publish in Lost Tales III and the upcoming edition.  The illustrations were commissioned by Lord Dunsany, who retained the originals. They were painted for two Jorkens stories and published in the Christmas issue of The Graphic for 1926. When I heard of these illustrations I was amazed to say the least. Sidney Sime and his visions are of course interwoven and part of Dunsany's works, but always in black and white.  And when I saw photos of the original paintings I realized that these had to be shared with Dunsany collectors.  Since the Jorkens stories have of course been published and collected several times, I had no real need to do them again, but felt that it would be in keeping with my desire to bring rare Dunsany material to light to include them in our books.  The Dunsany Estate graciously allowed us to use the one pictured here for Lost Tales Volume III and we will be presenting another exquisite one for The Men of Baldfolk and Other Fanciful Tales.  So after nearly ninety years, and unknown to most of the world we are delighted to share these wonderful visions of the Master painter of Pegana.

Men of Baldfolk Nearing Completion

March is very nearly over and we have been very busy at Pegana Press.  Mike has finished setting and printing all the stories for The Men of Baldfolk, which is the title of our latest volume of stories written by Lord Dunsany.  This morning he printed the colophon for the book.  The only pages left to print are things like table of contents, copyright, title page, etc.

He also plans to start work on the illustration this week.

I have been using the time between releases to catch up with all the work that went undone during the binding frenzy caused by The Golden Key.  This is tax season, and my book keeping skills always cause a frantic search for records and receipts in various files as I try to fill out forms correctly.

Fortunately, The Men of Baldfolk won’t be ready for binding until after mid April.  Until then, I am spending my time in the bindery working on a dummy to see the practical application of our design for this publication.  When I get one finished, I’ll post pictures on the website of what the book will look like.  It will be some time yet, before I can bind an actual copy of the book, but the dummy will provide a peek into what you can expect the book to look like.

We hope to begin offering the book for presale soon.